I completed mine yesterday.
It's such a sweet set!
So many great little details, which you couldn't see from the pictures around.

Well, we told you you wouldn't regret buying this set... Well worth every penny.

Andi wrote:

I have a lot of parts left - parts like 1x1 black tiles, 1x1 white round plates, small bricks and plates in black and grey, a brown 2x2 dish...
But there were 2 2x2 light grey plates missing.

Hmmm... that's too bad, about the missing parts. Are you sure you didn't misplace them? The brown dish (2x2 or 3x3?) sounds like it belongs on the Dianoga, it's the only place I can think of that demands a brown dish...

Andi wrote:

And I already included some mods.
The door and the detention area. (how can the detention area be without a roof?)
Additionally I started tiling the floors.

Great mods! I was thinking exactly the same about the detention block, it needs more roof! And the amount of space needed to build just the one cell is slightly disappointing: another cell would have been nice... Right now there is a lot of dead space there.
By the way, did you change some of the orange 'lights' to red 'lights' above the trash compactor door on purpose? Because I'd say they are all supposed to be orange...

Andi wrote:

What I wonder: Why did they include a black piece for the white Assassin Droid? If not making the piece in white, wouldn't have fit IG-88's silver one better?

It's Lego policy to use parts sparingly if possible: and the piece you refer to isn't available in white yet, I believe... It wouldn't be very cost effective to create this part, just to use once in a set.

Andi wrote:

Now looking for a nice Display space

My biggest issue with this set as well:-)_________________WWAD: What Would Alldarker Do?

Hello, well I finally finished the death star and I thought time to add my to cents, as it was quite a challenge.
Mind you, Lego could have made it a lot easier if they had of included numbers on the bags and checked all the pieces as I had 5 important ones missing.
Lucky I had these as extra pieces in other sets otherwise I'd have been really pissed.
Not that I'm complaining about the model, it's a great one! Maybe if Lego had paid a bit more attention to detail in regards to the tractor beam and detention centre it would have scored a 10 but as it stands I give it an 7.
It took 3 days (afternoons) to build and a day to sort (I blame Lego for that one?) It does everything that it claims to do and all the working parts do what they're supposed to without much effort.
The only problem was with the radar dish, as joining it was tricky using the small dish, I instead used a smaller round plate as it worked better.

Overall, excellent model, but Lego needs to rethink leaving the numbers of the bags, also include an extra set of stickers, it helps.

The toy shop in town has ordered one for display and (according to their order script) it's due to arrive tomorrow. I'll be glad to see it once it's finally built. The shopkeeper is going to have is sat on a rotating turn-table. He himself is a Lego SW fan but only collects OT sets.

Well, I was finally able to see it today (nearly a month on). The shopkeeper built it with a friend in a total time of 5 hours 11 minutes and put it into a display cabinet within half an hour for customers to view. It really does look great. You lot really need to see a Death Star playset rotating. It's cooler than the new R2 head design! I know Don will object. _________________FBTB: The Final Chapter
See it come to an end, starting Monday 2nd February 2009.

Also, as others have mentioned, in the instructions the colors were once again sometimes hard to distinguish. Black and dark bley, red and clear red, clear red and clear orange, silver and clear white were the main culprits...

For the most part, I didn't have difficulty. Black and dark bley look different enough that I didn't have any issues, and it's always easy to tell trans from non trans, since you can 'see through' them on the instructions.

Trans red and trans orange, on the other hand... I'm still not terribly sure I have them all right.

Finally finished the set last night/moring around 1 AM. It took just about 3 days and nights and my 7 year old boy is in heaven! He's been playing with it since he got home from school and never seen him so exited about a Lego set. I did have couple of pieces missing but had extra to make up for it. I did end up with quiet a few leftover parts also. All in all, I think it's well worth it.

We are moving soon, in 5 weeks, so I have to convince my wife to keep it the way it is and not break it down. Wish me luck!

Think we'll ever see this set under $400? I think I'm going to buy it for my 2 boys for next Christmas. Did it originally cost $500?

It's always been $399. With the $30 off recently, it was $369 and that's as low as I've seen it.

I ordered one then and it's on backorder, but given all the comments, I expect it to be worth it. One of the reviews I read said the sweet spot for this set really ought to be $250 or so, but that they can kind of get away with $400 because of all the minifigs. I don't know if that's the case, but it seems reasonable enough.

The trouble is, the minifigs will probably keep it popular enough to prevent huge markdowns for some time, if ever. It's more likely we'll see markdowns on minifig-less sets like most of the UCS ones. The falcon has been as much as $150 off, so I guess there's hope.

The wife surprised me...and the kids, with this for X-mas. What a build. I'm glad I read all the reviews, etc. on this. Never really sorted much prior to this, since Lego used to be better about numbering bags, etc. But thanks to this forum, I diligently sorted the bricks and made the build, which was awesome, that much more fun. The kids love this set. I can't wait to take it apart and do it again.

Wife already threatening to drop it off the table so she gets her money worth.

I just started the build after picking this up before Christmas in a sale (£188 ... bargain!). It's taken me the best part of 3 hours to do the sorting. And the manual ... what a piece of work! Beautiful.

But, if there was ever a set that demanded numbered bags ... this is it!!!

Wish me luck on the build ... it's gonna take a while!_________________I used to post here as "Big Pete" but my account got screwed ...